The Eleventh Night

The morning now dawned and Scheherazade broke off from what she had been allowed to say.

Then, when the eleventh night arrived, she continued talking:

"I have heard…"

"Oh auspicious king!"

Continuation of the story of the tenth night…

The girl laughed in spite of her anger. She then asked to the men:

"Tell me about yourselves, for you have no more than one hour to live, and as you aren´t people of rank, nor leaders or governors among your people, you would not have been so disrespectful."

The caliph said:

"Damn you, Ja'far!"

"Tell her about us or we shall be killed by mistake, and speak softly to her before we are victims of misfortune."

Ja'far replied:

"That is a part of what you deserve."

But the caliph shouted at him:

"There is a time for joking, but now it isn´t that time!"

"You must be serious!"

Then, the lady went to the dervishes and asked them if they were brothers.

They replied:

"No!"

"By Allah!"

"We are only fakirs and foreigners."

Next, she next asked one of them if he had been born one-eyed.

He said:

"No!"

"By Allah!"

"But I have a strange and wonderful story about the loss of my eye, which was written with needles on the inner corners of the eyeballs. It would serve as a warning to those who take heed."

When asked, the second and the third dervish made the same reply, and later they said:

"By Allah!"

"Young woman, each one of us comes from a different country, is the son of a king and is a ruler over lands and subjects."

She turned to them and expressed:

"Each one of you is going to tell its story and explain why came here, and can touch his forelock and go on his way."

The first to come forward was the doorman, who said:

"Young woman, I am doorman and this girl, who bought you your provisions, told me to carry them from the wine seller, the fruiterer, the butcher, the grocer, the sweetmeat seller and the perfumer, and then, I arrived here."

"You know what happened to me in this place."

"This is my story, and that's all there is."

The girl laughed at him and said:

"Touch your forelock and go."

He said:

"By Allah!"

"I am not going to leave until I have heard the stories of my companions."

The first devish started telling his tale.

Story of the first devish

Young woman, you must know that the reason why my chin is shaven and my eye has been plucked out is that my father was a king, who had a brother, also a king, who reigned in another city. His son and I were born on the same day.

Years later, when we had grown up, I had got into the habit of visiting my uncle every so often, and I would stay with him for some months.

My cousin treated me with the greatest generosity, and would kill sheep for me and pour out wine that he strained for me. Once, when we were drinking and under the influence of the wine, he said to me:

"Cousin, there is something that I need from you."

"Please, don't deny what I want."

I answered:

"I will help with pleasure."

After binding me with the most solemn of oaths, he got up straight away and left for a short while. Later, he came with a lady, veiled, perfumed and wearing the most expensive of clothes, who stood behind him as he turned to me and said:

"Take this woman and go ahead of me to this and this…"

"Take her to the burial enclosure and wait for me there."

By the description, I recognized that the place was the cemetery.

Because of the oath that I had sworn, I could not disobey him or refuse his request and so I went off with the woman, and we both went to that place. While we were sitting there, my cousin arrived with a bowl of water, a bag containing plaster, and a carpenter's axe. Taking this axe, he went to a tomb in the middle of the enclosure, and started to open it up, moving its stones to one side. Then he used the axe to prod about in the soil of the tomb, until he uncovered an iron cover the size of a small door. He raised this, revealing beneath it a vaulted staircase.

Turning to the woman, he said:

"Now you can do what you have chosen to do."

She went down the stairs. My cousin then looked at me and said:

"In order to complete the favor that you are doing to me, when I go down there, you must put back the cover and to replace the soil on top of it as it was before. Use the mortar that is in this bag and the water in the bowl to make a paste, and coat the circle of the stones in the enclosure so that it looks as it was before, without anyone being able to say: 'The inner part is old but there is a new opening here.' I have been working on this for a full year and no one but Allah knows what I have been doing. This is what I need from you."

He then took his leave of me, wishing me well, and went down the stairs. When he was out of

sight, I got up and replaced the cover and followed his instructions, so that the place looked just as it was before.

Then, I went back like a drunken man to the palace of my uncle, who was away hunting. In the morning, after a night's sleep, I thought of what had happened to my cousin the evening before, and when repentance was of no use, I was ashamed of what I had done and of how I had obeyed him. Thinking that it might have been a dream, I started to ask for my cousin, but nobody could tell me where he was. I went out to the cemetery, looking for the enclosure, but I could not find it. I kept on going round, enclosure after enclosure, and grave after grave, until nightfall, but I still failed in my search.

I returned to the palace, but I could neither eat nor drink, for my thoughts were taken up with my cousin, as I did not know how he was, and I was intensely distressed. I passed a difficult night until morning came. When I went for a second time to the cemetery, thinking over what my cousin had done and regretting that I had listened to him. I went round all the enclosures, but, to my regret, I still could not find the right one or recognize the grave.

For seven days, I went on with my fruitless quest, and my misgivings increased, until I was almost driven mad. The only relief that I could find was to leave and go back to my father, but, as soon as I reached the gate of his city, I was attacked by a group of men, who tied me up. I was astonished, seeing that I was the son of the city's ruler and they were my father's servants, and in my alarm, I said to myself:

"What happened to my father?"

I asked my captors why they were doing this.

At first they didn´t answer, but after a time one of them, who had been a servant of mine, said: "Your father has fallen victim to the treachery of Time."

"The army conspired against him and he was killed by the vizier, who has taken his place."

"It was by his orders that we were watching out for you."

I was stunned by what I heard about my father and fearful because I had a long-standing quarrel with the vizier, before whom my captors now brought me. I had been passionately fond of shooting with a pellet bow and the quarrel arose from this. One day, when I was standing on the roof of my palace, a bird settled on the roof of the palace of the vizier. I intended to shoot it, but the pellet missed, and as had been decreed by Fate, it struck out the eye of the vizier. This was like the Proverb expressed in the old lines:

"We walked with a pace that was decreed for us."

"And this is how those under Fate's control must walk."

"A man destined to die in a certain land will not find death in any other."

When the vizier lost his eye, he could not say anything because my father was the king of the city, and for this he was my enemy. When I now stood before him with my hands tied, he ordered my head to be cut off.

I asked:

"For what crime, will you kill me."

He replied, pointing to his missing eye:

"What crime is greater than this?"

I protested:

"This was an accident!"

He stated:

"If you did it by accident, then, I am doing this deliberately."

Then, he said to the guards:

"Bring him forward."

The guards brought me up in front of him, and sticking his finger into my right eye, the vizier plucked it out, leaving me from that time on one-eyed, as you can see. Then, he tied and put me in a box, telling to the executor:

"Take charge of him, draw your sword and when you have brought him outside the city, kill him and let the birds and beasts eat him."

The executor took me out of the city to the middle of the desert and then he removed me from the box, bound as I was, hand and foot. He was about to bandage my eyes before going on to kill me, but I wept so bitterly that I moved him to tears. Then, looking at him, I recited:

"I thought of you as a strong coat of mail."

"To protect me from the arrows of my foes."

"But now, you are the arrow head."

"I pinned my hopes on you in all calamities."

"When my right hand could no longer aid my left."

"Leave aside what censurers say."

"And let my enemies shoot their darts at me."

"If you do not protect me from my enemies."

"At least your silence neither hurts me nor helps them."

"I thought my brothers were a coat of mail."

"They were, but this was for the enemy."

"I thought of them as deadly shafts."

"They were so, but their points pierced my heart."

The executor had been at my father's service and I had done him favors, so when he heard these lines, he said:

"Master, what can I do for you?"

"I am a slave under your command."

But, then he continued speaking:

"Keep your life, but don't come back to this land or else you will be killed and you will destroy me, together with yourself. As one of the Poets has said: 'If you should meet injustice, save your life. And let the house lament its builder. You can replace the country that you leave. But, there is no replacement for your life. I wonder at those who live humiliated. When Allah's earth is so wide. Send out no messenger on any grave affair. For only yourself will give you good advice. The necks of lions would not be so thick. Were others present to look after them.' "

I kissed his hands, scarcely believing that I had escaped death. In comparison with this, I found the loss of my eye insignificant. So, I traveled to my uncle's city, and after presenting myself to him, I told him what had happened to my father, as well as how I had come to lose my eye.

He burst into tears and said:

"You have this pain added to my cares and my sorrows."

"My son, your cousin, has disappeared days ago and I don't know what has happened to him, nor can anyone bring me news."

He continued to weep until he fainted and I was bitterly sorry for him. Then, my uncle wanted to apply some medicines to my eye, but when seeing that it was like an empty walnut shell, he expressed:

"Better to lose your eye, my boy, than to lose your life."

At that moment, I could no longer stay silent about the affair of my cousin, his son, and so I told him all that had happened. When he heard my news, he was delighted and told me to come and show him the enclosure.

I said:

"By Allah!"

"Uncle, I don't know where it is."

"I went back many times after that and searched, but I couldn't find the place."

However, he and I went to the cemetery, and after looking right and left, to our great joy, I recognized the place. The two of us went into the enclosure, and after removing the earth, we lifted the cover. We climbed down fifty steps and when reaching the bottom, we found blinding smoke.

My uncle exclaimed words that can never put to shame anyone who speaks them:

"There is no might and no power except with Allah, the Exalted, the Omnipotent!"

We walked on and found ourselves in a hall filled with flour, grain, eatables and so other goods, there in the middle of it, we saw a curtain hanging down over a couch. My uncle looked and found his son and the woman, who had gone down with him locked in an embrace, but they had become black charcoal, as though they had been thrown into a pit of fire.

On seeing this, my uncle spat in his son's face and said:

"You deserve this!"

"Pig!"

"This is your punishment in this world, but there the punishment of the next world, which will be harsher and stronger."

To be continued during the twelfth night…